


Stay.

by binarystarkillers



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: But I Love Them, Kon is a dumbass but he's doing his best, M/M, Sickfic, They're both emotional and dumb, Trans Tim Drake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24576694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/binarystarkillers/pseuds/binarystarkillers
Summary: Kon scowls before crossing the room to his boyfriend, wrapping an arm around him and helping him to his feet. “You,” he states, “are going to bed.”“But-”“No.”“I have to-”“No.”
Relationships: Cissie King-Jones/Cassie Sandsmark, Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent, Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent, feat. - Relationship
Comments: 15
Kudos: 162





	Stay.

It’s 3am when Dick gets the call.

“Hello?” He mumbles, face still half-smooshed into a pillow. 

“Dick? Thank god.” The panic is palpable, even over the phone. 

Instantly, Dick is sitting up, wide awake. “Kon? What’s wrong? Is Tim okay?” 

Kon laughs, frazzled. “He’s… fine,” he says, but Dick can tell that there’s more to it. 

“If he’s okay, then why are you calling me at Satan’s ass A.M.? Unless this is a booty call, which is, like, _super_ messed up, dude. I’m in a relationship, and so are you, with my _brother_ , and Jesus Christ, there’s _got_ to be better ways for you two to work out your relationship problems,” Dick flops back down with a sigh, sending an apologetic smile to the other person in his bed, who just shrugs and stumbles into the kitchen.

“What - no, he’s just sick - and _no_ , this isn’t a fucking booty call, why the fuck - and also why is that the first place you went to?!”

“I… never mind. So, Tim’s sick? This isn’t a big deal, Kon. Is that really worth waking me up at - fuck, what time even is it?” 

There’s a faint rustle, and when Kon comes back to the phone, he’s quieter. “It’s 3:35 a.m., but seriously, Dick, I need your help.”

Dick groans, burying his face further into the pillow. “Conner, it’s before six,” he mumbles, because honestly, he’d like to help, he would, but his bed is really warm and he can think of about a hundred things he’d rather be doing than listening to his little brother’s boyfriend. “Before six is wake-me-up-only-if-the-world-is-ending time. Tim getting sick doesn’t count, unless he gets bored and decides to ‘improve’ the government again.”

“... I feel like there’s a story there, but that can wait. Dick, you’re his brother, and I’m…” 

From far away, he dimly registers that Kon is speaking, but he can’t make out the words. Whatever it is, he thinks, it can probably wait, wait until the morning when there are more sounds than cars passing in the distance and when his room no longer smells like dreams.

*******

“Dick? Dick, are you there?”

There’s no response, and Kon figures that he probably fell back asleep. He swears under his breath and half-heartedly chucks his phone across the room, wincing slightly when it slides off of the chair he threw it at and onto the floor with a dull clunk. He can’t even blame Dick, he muses as he walks down the hallway, wincing at every creak the floorboards make. If he had his way, he wouldn’t be awake, either.

Tim is curled up in a little ball on his bed, knees pulled to his chest and hair damp with sweat. He’s muttering to himself, but his eyes are screwed tightly shut. Ah. Bad dreams, then. Gingerly, he sits next to his boyfriend, gently pushing his hair out of his eyes. Still asleep, Tim leans into his touch, the crease between his eyebrows softening slightly. “Hey,” he murmurs, gently moving his hand down from Tim’s forehead to his cheek, tracing his cheekbone with his thumb. “Tim,” he tries again, a little louder. “Are you all right?”

Tim makes a soft sound, blearily opening his eyes. They’re too bright, and his skin is warm under Kon’s hand. “Kon?” he mumbles, sounding a little bit like a lost child. 

“Hey,” Kon smiles at him, trying not to show how worried he is. “You were having a nightmare.”

Tim frowns. “A nightmare… what time is it?” He asks, words sliding into each other. “Early,” Kon replies, adjusting the blankets around Tim. “You should go back to sleep, I just thought… you were talking.”

Tim hums affirmatively, curling up somehow smaller. “‘Mkay,” he all but whispers, eyes already sliding shut. Kon stands up to go, pulling his hand away from Tim and shutting the door behind him. 

As he’s shutting the door, he thinks he hears Tim say something, but he doesn’t speak again, and Kon closes the door with a soft click. If he hears a distressed noise from the empty room as he walks down the hall, he tells himself it’s his imagination. 

*******

The crash from across the apartment is the first thing that wakes Kon up the next morning. Startled, he flails and falls unceremoniously off of the couch and onto the hardwood floor. “Damn superhearing,” he grumbles as he pushes himself up, dusting off his knees. “Tim?” He calls out, walking over to the bottom of the staircase. His body is aching from lack of sleep; if he’s guessed right, it’s only been about thirty minutes since he’d called Dick.

There’s no reply, but a moment later he hears a second slam, and he runs up the stairs, adrenaline pumping through his veins. “Tim?” he calls again, knocking softly at Tim’s closed door. “You all right?” 

There’s another pause, and then - “‘m fine.” Tim’s voice is abnormally raw, which doesn’t exactly put Conner at ease. 

“Can I come in?”

“Uh, sure.”

Kon pushes the door open, and his jaw drops a little. Tim’s usually meticulous room is in complete disarray, clothes and papers strewn everywhere. The teen in question is in the bathroom, sitting next to the toilet. He’s dressed in old jeans and one of Kon’s sweaters, but besides that, he doesn’t look better at all from the previous night. 

“Jesus, Tim. What happened?”

Tim just gives him a look, raising an eyebrow reproachfully. Against his will, Kon feels himself grin. Go figure that even when sick, Tim could manage to be sarcastic as hell. “I tried to get ready,” he grumbles, his head dropping back down into his arms. 

Kon scowls before crossing the room to his boyfriend, wrapping an arm around him and helping him to his feet. “You,” he states, “are going to bed.”

“But-”

“No.”

“I have to-”

“No.”

Tim frowns. “You can’t stop me.”

Surprised, Kon laughs, tipping his head back. “What are you going to do about it? Going to leave? You’d have to get past me, and I’m the only thing stopping you from falling on your ass.”

“...shut up.”

“Wow, great comeback, babe.”

Ten minutes later, Kon finds himself opening his phone again, scowling as he leans on the hallway wall outside Tim’s room. Tim had put his emergency contacts in Kon’s phone years ago, should the need arise. He’s rarely needed to call either number, but whenever he did, he had always called Dick. 

Tim might not hold a grudge against his other elder brother, but Kon has enough of one for them both. 

“Fuck,” he mumbles, and hits the call button.

To his credit, Jason picks up on the second ring. “Sleep, fluids, meds,” he says by means of greeting. 

“I-what?”

Jason makes a noise that, if Kon didn’t know better, he would have called a laugh. “You’re calling because Timbit is sick, and you have no clue what to do. Make sure he rests, drinks lots of water, and takes medicine. If there’s none in the bathroom, Dickhead keeps extras in the linen cupboard.”

“I - thanks - how the fuck did you know that he’s sick?”

“Give me a moment, Kent,” he grunts, and Kon thinks he might hear gunfire. “I’m kind of in the middle of something, all right?”

Kon moves the phone away from his ear, his hearing amplifying the sounds of the resulting scuffle. A few minutes later, Jason speaks again, panting slightly. “I woke up to a horrified voicemail from Dick,” he says. “Oh, and make sure the idiot takes off his binder, all right? He’ll sleep in it if you don’t remind him.”

“Oh, yeah. Uh- thanks. But, I mean, why are you helping me anyway?”

There’s a silence on the other end before Jason speaks again, voice carefully even in the Bat-style Kon had grown to understand meant ‘I’m angry with you but not telling you.’

“What do you mean?”

“I mean. No offence, dude, but I didn’t think you really liked Tim. Or, like… anyone.”

Jason inhales sharply, and Conner flinches, expecting Jason to start yelling. What he didn't expect, though, was the undercurrent of hurt when Jason speaks again. 

“I thought that the moral, holier-than-thou, one in your family was big blue. Guess the apple doesn’t fall from the tree, does it? Which tree, though?”

Kon is about to hang up when he speaks again.

“I know I’m not the best person. I know I’ve done some shit that everyone, including me, would rather forget. I’ve fucked over my relationships with so many people, you don’t even know.” 

There’s a long moment of silence over the phone, and Kon bites his lip, unsure of what to say; if he should give the other man an ‘it’s okay’ or a ‘fuck you’.

“And despite that, Tim still breaks into my apartment and eats all my leftovers. And that - fuck, I’m going soft - that means something.”

When Conner doesn’t reply, frozen with some blend of guilt and surprise, Jason sighs. “Just make sure he’s okay. Left alone, the moron would probably choke on his own tongue or some shit. Just make sure he's okay, Ke- Conner.”

Kon opens his mouth, but before he can reply, say anything really, the line goes dead. Blinking, he stands a little shell-shocked, before a pitiful moan comes from Tim’s room, and he snaps back into the present. Right. Tim needs him.

Tentatively, Kon raps his fingers against the door. “Tim? You still changing?”

He gets a weak chuckle in response. “Conner, you’ve seen me naked. You’ve made me naked. I don’t care.”

“...”

Tim sighs. “No, I’m not changing.”

“I- it’s different! It’s rude,” Kon protests, but pushes the door open all the same. True to his word, Tim is sprawled face-down in his bed, in pyjamas. The clothes he was wearing were now strewn all over the room; his shirt hanging off the edge of the bed, his pants lying outside his closet door and his binder lying atop his desk. Kon’s pretty sure the shirt is on backwards, but hey, he’ll take what he can get.

“Fuckin’ hicks,” Tim grumbles into the mattress in a way that’s far too reminiscent of Cassie Sandsmark.

“Wow.”

Gingerly, Kon sits on the bed next to his sick boyfriend, rubbing a hand across his back. “Jesus, you’re hot.”

“Thanks,” Tim says, his voice slurring as his eyes droop shut, curling himself around Kon.

“What can I do?” Conner asks, keeping his voice softer as to not disturb the sleepy detective. “Do you want tea or water or something?”

Tim hums a negative, eyes squeezing shut. “No. Just… stay?”

There’s something so heart-wrenchingly vulnerable in Tim’s eyes that Kon agrees without a second thought. “Of course.”

Tim smiles and makes room for Kon to lie down, but Conner finds himself frowning as Tim tucks himself into his arms, a pleased little hum escaping him as Kon adjusts to better be used as a pillow. Because he can’t stop replaying the moment he told Tim he’d stay. Because before he’d smiled…

… well, he’d looked surprised.

*******

Warm. 

Safe.

No, wait. 

Pain? 

Crying.

Tim crying.

Tim.

Conner jerks awake, eyes wide. Tim, seemingly still asleep, is lying on his chest, his breath coming in irregular jerks as tears pool in the corners of his closed eyes, catching in his eyelashes as he whimpers. 

“Tim. Tim. Babe. Wake up.”

Tim’s eyes snap open and he lets out a strangled yelp, nearly headbutting Conner in the nose as his Bat-reflexes take over. Before he can lash out again, Kon grabs his wrists, speaking clearly. “Tim. Tim. It’s me. You’re fine.”

Bleary eyes meet his, and the pure fear in them feels like a slap to the face. He looks afraid, like he’s expecting Conner to hurt him, or - by the way his fingers curl around Kon’s - like he’s afraid that Conner will push him off of him.

“Kon?” Tim whispers, and he sounds so afraid, so young that something in Kon’s chest constricts painfully as he pulls Tim into him, running his fingers through the shorter boy’s hair as Tim’s tears leave a warm spot on his collarbone.

“Sorry,” he says a few minutes later, and pushes himself off of Kon, wiping his face furiously. 

“It’s fine,” Kon says automatically, sitting up. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, of course. Just a stupid nightmare, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“I- are you sure?”

“I’m a big boy, Kon,” Tim says, but he sounds more weary than anything, hunched in on himself like a wounded animal, his dark hair lank with sweat and his skin pallid. 

“Worse than last night?” he finally says, and Tim shrugs. Nightmares aren’t new to him, they aren’t new to any of them - it wasn’t uncommon for any of the Teen Titans to bump into each other in the common areas of the tower in the early hours of the morning with mirrored hollow gazes and shaking hands.

“Different, I guess.”

“Whaddya mean?” Kon asks, but Tim is done answering. He flops back down next to Kon, leaving some space between them, and pulls the previously discarded duvet over himself, curling it around him like a cocoon. 

A few minutes later, he’s fallen asleep, faster than he ever does when he’s not sick. He’s shaking a little, though, and Kon half-floats out of bed, trying as hard as he can to be quiet. 

The clock on Tim’s microwave says it’s 4 a.m., which means he and Tim had been in bed for nearly twenty hours. Tim had slept through most of it, occasionally waking up to peer over Kon’s shoulder as he watched Netflix before eventually dozing off again. 

He’d been ill two more times, which seemed to embarrass him for some reason, snapping that he “could do it himself” when Kon brought him water, trying to hide the tears that sprung to his eyes when he was sick.

True to Jason’s word, there had been meds in the linen cupboard, which Conner is fairly certain is the one place in the apartment that Tim has never touched. He’d also had to wash out a glass from the overflowing sink, dirty dishes piled all over the counter. Tim had taken to being taken care of about as well as Conner had expected, meaning he was awkward and grumpy the entire time, but would begrudgingly swallow painkillers and drink a few glasses of water all the same.

There’s teabags in the cupboards, and three clean mugs, but beyond that, Kon’s lost. Fishing his phone out of his sweatpants pocket, he sends a text to the only person he knows who would be awake right now.

[4:09 a.m.] **Kon:** hey how do you make tea

[4:10 a.m.] **The only functioning one:** What do you mean?

[4:10 a.m.] **Kon:** tea. fancy stuff. pretentious people drink it. how do u make it

**[The only functioning one is calling]**

“ ‘Yello?”

“How do you not know how to make tea?” Cissie asks in lieu of greeting, a smile evident in her voice. She sounds awake and energetic, like she’s been up for hours instead of ten minutes. If Kon listens hard enough, he can hear her girlfriend snoring in the background, sleeping like he wishes he was.

“I don’t know, I just? Don’t?”

She laughs, and Conner hears a kettle whistling on her side of the line. “It’s just hot water and tea bags, Kon,” she says, and the whistling stops. “Since when do you drink tea, though?”

“I don’t. Tim’s sick, and I heard somewhere that tea is good?”

Cissie hums. “Stomach thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t give him anything with caffeine. That’s probably all he has, though.”

“How do you tell if it has caffeine or not?”

“It usually says,” she answers, and Kon can hear her filling up her own mug, and then a second one, presumably for Cassie. “As a general rule, though, if it’s black tea, or green tea, it’s caffeinated. Does he have any herbal ones?”

“Uh, one minute,” Kon says, setting the phone down. Like most of his apartment, Tim’s cupboard is messy and organized at the same time; there’s a water glass upside down in a bowl on one shelf, but the tea and coffee is neatly stacked.

“Gotcha,” he muttered aloud, grabbing a barely-touched box of mint tea from the back of the cupboard. Picking up the phone again, he asks, “is mint okay?”

“Yeah, that’s perfect, actually. Do I need to walk you through how to turn a kettle on, too?”

“Fuck off.”

“...”

“There’s no on switch. Please help me.” 

Cissie bursts into laughter. 

*******

A few minutes later, Kon is clutching a mug of mint tea in his left hand, using tactile telekinesis every few seconds to make sure he’s silent as he makes his way back to Tim’s room. When the door swings open, though, Kon sees that it was all in vain - Tim is already awake, dark purple circles under his eyes and a pack of tissues in front of him. 

“Oh, sorry, dude. Didn’t mean to wake you up,” he says, and Tim’s head snaps up, surprise flickering over his face. 

“Caught you off guard?” Kon teases, passing him the mug. 

Tim takes a big sip of it, before making a face. “Hot,” he murmures, and takes another, smaller, sip. 

Then, so quietly Kon almost misses it, even with his superhearing: “Thought you left.”

“What?”

Tim blinks at him, before his eyes clear a little, and he looks embarrassed. Kon’s no detective, not by a long shot, but it was fairly obvious Tim had meant to keep that one for himself.

“Nothing.”

Tim is still resolutely refusing to meet his eyes, and, very slowly, the puzzle pieces begin to click together.

_“Just make sure he’s okay.” “No, just… stay?” The noise he’d thought he’d imagined when he first tried to sleep. A million little looks. “I’m a big boy, Kon.” “I can do it for myself.”_

“Tim.”

“Yeah?"’

“You’re so fucking stupid.”

“Huh?”

Tim’s eyes are cloudy with fever, and for a second, Kon wonders if he was too harsh for the moment. But then, fuck it, put it as simply as possible. Hedging his chances, Kon takes a shot in the dark.

“You know I’m here because I want to be, right?”

“I-” 

Tim breaks off, but his gaze doesn’t waver from Kon’s. It’s analyzing, searching for something. After a minute, his eyes flicker away, but there’s a hint colour rising in his cheeks, different from the flush of the fever. Kon hopes he’s found what he was looking for.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Tim thinks for a second, and then shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says, but he looks back at Conner when he says it, and there’s a hint of a smile playing at his lips. He shifts to the side, a silent invitation for Kon to sit next to him, and he does. 

“Love ya, you doofus,” he says, and Tim’s smile is quiet and shy and absolutely breathtaking.

Tim leans on his shoulder, and they watch the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been over a year since I last published Timkon, and that's a CRIME. Also, I've never written from Kon's perspective before, so I hope it came out okay.
> 
> My tumblr is binarystarkillers! Also a HUGE thank you to my lovely beta reader, queerbutstillhere. You're the best. <3


End file.
